Comment: Anthropologists should stay off the front line

DURING the cold war, the US Pentagon called on physics to help it gain an edge over its enemies. To help win today's "war on terror" it is calling on rather a different discipline: anthropology. It believes cultural knowledge is just as useful a tool for counter-insurgency as technological superiority. So social anthropologists are being called to the front line - a highly worrying development.

The Pentagon recently announced two major initiatives to improve its cultural understanding in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first is the Human Terrain System, for which defence secretary Robert Gates allocated $40 million last September. The HTS consists of 26 five-person teams, one for each combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each team includes an anthropologist or other social scientist, who wears military uniform and receives weapons training. They advise US troops on culturally appropriate behaviour, such as avoiding staring at Muslim women or ...

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